I still need to check out a few, but some of the music suggested in this thread have huge soundstages and I really like the music in general, but I didn't think they exhibited the effect as well as the two listed above. Of course this is on my system in my room.

I also found a Chesky sampler which has one track that has a group of people marching up to the mic and then circling it a few times while they blow whistles and make other noise to be interesting for testing out placement of absorbers and such in the room.

Now, back to reality of †Recording's in general....and in comes Decware.....and where even the best Solid State ultimately does suck with grain and more grain (even with great recordings too IMHO).

For example: even on a very very good Solid State System, RUSH - Negative Feedback, can not be fleshed out to be musical. †With Alchemy and I mean Alchemy firmly....I have put together Systems with Decware, where you can actually enjoy this 29 minute Disc of covers they played and loved as a bar band coming up... . †That is saying something for a compressed Rock record! Of course, this is just one example...I wanted to use this ROCK...example for obvious reasons. †I have great results with my Contemporary Jazz Discs too....which is my favorite Genre.

Anyway, I digress, however, I love the great recordings in my collection...but ultimately you need to put together a System to play all of it with great Harmonics, decay, imaging with a soundstage.

I have a ZMA coming in a couple weeks & this August I'll order a Torii IV to complete my Decware Stable (with SE84CS & Super Zen CKC). As we know it is about the music here....not about well spec'd odd order sand Amps with oscilloscopes! †

+1 on putting together a system that plays it all well. That is my ultimate goal.

I figured that I'd start with those recordings that obviously have the effect I am looking for. A reference point of sorts. If I can't achieve it with the good recordings, the rest will never measure up.

I am less than one year with Decware. From day one, I was getting something I hadn't heard in SS. I tried Class D, T-amps, etc. that promised tube like sound. One visit to Decware and I knew these amps offered something I hadn't heard yet and "it" was what I was after."So I started out extremely happy with what I purchased and continue to get great enjoyment out of my system. After hearing what room treatment can do, I thought it was worth a shot at making something great even better. Two of the three treatments I have tried have had significant impact.

I am at the point now that I may not do much more to the room. Maybe some bass traps but I have been able to do some quick and dirty fixes with the equalizer in Audirvana.

Now I am open to building a music library of good recordings. Any suggestions are welcomed. I monitor the "What's spinning" thread and check those recordings out frequently.

This is a great thread palomino. Putting sound absorber/diffuser/b traps into a room really pays dividends. Empty room..clap hands = tubey echo.Treat the room..clap hands = no echo. Thats just the start though. I`ve put stuff up (will get pics soon) and do I know what I`m doing ? It`s kind of symmetrical so I`m pondering it still 12 months on. Classic horseshoe soundstage no prob. Front to back between the speakers, well, could be better. I`d like the singer standing more forward etc. The drums are always back, kind of reference + he has as many channels as the engineer gives him. I too would like more back to front. It too has been a goal for a long time. It` unlockable but just listening to the music is fine for now. I did think that I`d have to spend mega on a cart but this thread is slowly sinking in.

Yeah, I think now I put room treatments first before additional upgrades on most anything.

For example, I thought at 89db my speakers were just not loud enough. I started looking around, Decware, Omegas, etc. With even the modest amount of treatment that I have done, I have turned the volume way down and am no longer looking at speakers.

More powerful amp? Don't need it right now. Yeah, there are days, but not very often.

New mega expensive DAC? That was also on the list. Now I think I'm OK for a while. In fact, I am experimenting with a less expensive DAC now that I think is fantastic (still don't believe what I am hearing).

So like I said, I am trying move to listening to and buying good music. I'm also rediscovering lots of music that I always liked the "tune" but now I'm enjoying the "music" because I can hear it better.

I did an interesting little experiment over the weekend. I downloaded a cheap, but well reviewed SPL meter ap for my iPhone and Ethan Winerís test tone tracks (http://realtraps.com/test-cd.htm). Basically these tones cover the bass frequencies from 20hz to 300hz. I used these tones because my own ears told me that I had an issue with certain bass frequencies and I donít have any real bass traps in my room.

I used the included pink noise to set the volume to 70db and then played the test tracks and recorded the levels. While this SPL meter on my phone is hardly a precision instrument, it did show me my peaks and valleys.

To adjust, I moved my absorbers, diffusers around and watched the SPL digital display while playing the offending frequencies. I was not able to change the offending frequencies by more than 1 db. Then I used the equalizer within Audirvana to try to tweak the three problem areas.

I was not able to do much with the lower frequency problem areas, but I was able to take care of one at about 200hz. I just played the tone and adjusted the slider down until I got closer to 70db. I went from 79db down to about 74db.

Then I sat down and listened. The changes were easily noticeable. Imaging improved a little, but the detail I could hear now was significantly better and the recordings (just about all of them) sounded more real. An example is being better able to hear vibrato in the end of a verse where the singerís voice tails off. Not only that, but the tail of that passage is longer than I could previously hear. I suspect that this peak I had was actually hiding some of the detail present at or around that frequency.

So now I am able to say without hesitation that this was my best bang for the buck audio tweak. I think the SPL ap was $1.99. I did probably spend 2-3 hours doing this exercise.

Hereís the catch. I changed speakers and it was all out the window. I changed output tubes and to a lesser degree, there was a change as well. So I will have to re-tune for speakers. I am not sure I will re-tune for tubes. Luckily, Audirvana has settings you can save as separate files.

This newly released cd is a great Redbook demo disc for Zen systems. The original recording is very good, the mastering on this release is really really good. The performances are excellent, they have an exotic feel to them but also are very much in the 'sixties jazz tradition, and very accessible and interesting to rock listeners. The percussion is just stunningly presented and there's real space and texture to the sound.

Here is where I am right now in terms of my room. †I'm getting good 3D from lots of recordings. †It's been an amazing transformation, especially considering how little I spent. †

Very educational too. †Just last night I measured the SPL just two feet in front and behind my listening position and the variance in one of my "offending" frequencies was considerable. †Much louder at the listening position. †

I am now playing with chair / speaker location to get out of that mode.